


Snippets and Meta

by Adina



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9911663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: Short works and meta in Torchwood that I didn't think need their own posts.





	1. Champagne at Five

Originally posted at [Bring the Happy](http://bringthehappy.livejournal.com/18549.html?thread=346485) on July 24th, 2009.

_In a slightly different universe..._

The cog door rolled open at almost noon, letting the dulcet strains of Owen's whinging preceding him through the door. "...not a fucking thing! Wild goose chase, that was." He stopped dead a foot inside the cog door, bringing Gwen up short against his back. "Does anyone know why the Hub is festooned with silver and gold streamers?" he demanded of the world at large.

"That would be because I hung them up," Ianto offered helpfully from the ladder where he was hanging the last of them. 

Owen looked like he'd have a headache if he weren't dead and all. "Brilliant. Good to know that aliens haven't invaded the Hub and redecorated," he said sourly. "Of course that leaves the question of _why_?"

"Because Jack asked me to?" Ianto answered brightly, seeing no reason to make life--or undeath--any easier for him. Besides, that way he didn't have to admit that he didn't know. That morning, when Jack had woken him up to hand him a party-pack of streamers, was the happiest he'd seen Jack since his brother died, so he couldn't find it in him even to care what the occasion was. Maybe it was the Boeshane equivalent of Christmas.

Gwen pushed her way past Owen. "Jack?" 

Jack popped his head over the railing from the upstairs balcony. "Gwen." He gave her his biggest and cheesiest grin, but for once it didn't seem to be covering up anything but happiness. "Owen. Right on time."

"We didn't find any sign of the weevil in Splott," Gwen reported. 

"That would be because there wasn't one," Jack grinned. 

Owen sputtered. "You deliberately-- _why_?"

"I needed you out of the Hub." Jack was still grinning. It was probably time to strap him down while Owen ran tests on him, but damn it was good to see him happy, even if it turned out to be alien influenced.

"You couldn't just threaten to have sex with the tea-boy? That would get me out faster than weevils, without having to drive to Splott."

Jack cocked his head, obviously thinking about it. "If I promised Ianto sex the streamers wouldn't have gotten hung."

"So no actual downside, then," Ianto found himself saying. The look Gwen gave him was almost worth the embarrassment. Jack laughed. 

Jack clapped his hands. "Right. Champagne, cake, streamers. Now all we need is the birthday girl, and Tosh should be here in--" He checked his wrist strap. "Any moment now."

Ianto blinked, once and then twice. "Jack. It isn't Tosh's birthday." Jack had forgotten things while he had been buried for two millennium, but this--

Jack shrugged. "Not her birthday, no. But--"

The cog door rolled open again. "Jack?" Tosh said as she walked in. "I couldn't find--" She stopped at the sight of the streamers, turned an inquisitive gaze up at Jack. 

Jack took the stairs two steps at a time. "Our girl Toshiko has been with Torchwood Three exactly five years as of today," he announced when he got to the main floor. 

The blood drained from Tosh's face. Ianto got there first, holding her up and guiding her to the sofa. "Tosh?" he asked quietly.

"I--didn't think anyone would remember," she said faintly.

"It's good though. That Jack remembered?" he asked just as quietly. He could fake an alarm, lock down the Hub, even let a weevil loose. Anything to distract attention from her if that was what she wanted. Needed. 

"I--yes. Of course," she said weakly. She didn't sound very convincing, but she managed to dredge up a smile for Jack as he handed her a flute of champagne. Jack's face turned serious for a moment as he gave her a solemn nod, then he grinned again. She smiled back and this time it looked almost real.

"Oi!" Owen said, grabbing a flute of champagne as well, though Ianto sincerely hoped he wouldn't try to drink it. "Do I get a party for my five-year?"

Jack shook his head. "When you do five years of actual work around here--"

"The sun will burn out before that happens," Ianto suggested. He met Owen's glare with a smirk, raising his champagne flute in a toast. 

Tosh gave Ianto a light smack on the arm. "Don't be silly. I'm sure we'll find a substitute sun first."


	2. Torchwood One organization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at http://adina-atl.livejournal.com/133178.html on October 30th, 2008

[](http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/profile)[**copperbadge**](http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/) and I were discussing in email what Lisa's role at Torchwood One had been, especially in light of the Torchwood Yearbook saying that she had been an HR assistant. This led into a discussion of what all 800+ employees of Torchwood One _did_. I thought that a good bit of HR could be outsourced, especially payroll and benefits, because why would a payroll clerk need to know about aliens? I once cut the grass for a classified military intelligence office; doesn't mean I had a security clearance or ever setting foot inside the door.

So anyway, I started making up an organization chart for Torchwood One, with major departments and support people and whatnot. I'm open to suggestions for additions and changes, just let me know what you think. I'm also working on a story, "Five Departments Ianto Worked at in London (and One He Didn't)" that I will post as soon as it's finished.

  * Office of the director 
    * Director (Yvonne Hartman) 
    * Executive assistant 
    * Personal assistant 
  * Investigation 
    * Department head 
      * Deputy department head 
      * Department secretary 
    * Incident response teams -- Five teams of six? 
    * Artifact identification and classification 
    * Archives (joint with research) 
    * Alien detention facility (joint with xenobiology) 
    * Human detention facility 
      * Retcon and release 
      * Interrogation 
      * Long-term (Transfer to UNIT?) 
  * Research 
    * Department head 
      * Deputy department head 
      * Department secretary 
    * Medical/biological/xenobiological 
      * Alien healing devices 
      * Employee medical and first aid 
        * Psychological 
        * Trauma 
        * Disease 
      * Biological warfare/epidemiology 
        * Offensive  

        * Defensive/emergency response 
      * Xenobiology 
        * Anatomy 
        * Biological systems and requirements 
        * Xenobotany (ETA: at [](http://annemjw.livejournal.com/profile)[**annemjw**](http://annemjw.livejournal.com/) 's suggestion 
    * Linguistics/cryptography 
      * Alien transmission interception and translation (including SETI) 
      * Computer translation devices and algorithms 
      * Alien language acquisition 
      * Interrogation (joint with investigation and xenobiology) 
    * Space craft 
      * Propulsion/FTL 
      * Life support 
      * Navigation 
    * Weapons 
      * Land to land 
        * Lethal 
          * Anti-personnel 
          * Anti-tank (or other technology, including Dalek) 
            * Mechanical 
            * Electronic 
        * Disabling 
          * Anti-personnel 
            * Stun gun 
            * Tangle - force field or chemical 
            * Gas 
            * Nervous system (could also be lethal) 
          * Anti-tank (or other technology, including Dalek) 
            * Mechanical 
            * Electronic 
              * Area-effect 
              * Force-field 
        * Hand held and other miniaturized 
      * Land to space 
        * Destructive 
        * Salvage-oriented 
          * Electro-Magnetic Pulse 
          * Tractor beam 
      * Space to space 
        * Satellite-based 
        * Space craft-mounted 
        * Mines 
      * Technology conversion and adaptation (How to turn a peaceful tool into a weapon) 
    * Energy 
      * Ghost Shift 
      * Fusion 
      * Portable fission 
  * Intelligence 
    * Department head 
      * Deputy department head 
      * Department secretary 
    * Intelligence 
      * Foreign governments and individuals 
      * Non-governmental groups with alien knowledge/contact 
      * Nut jobs (conspiracy theorists and supermarket tabloids) 
      * Special projects 
        * UNIT 
        * Torchwood 2 and 3 surveillance (AKA "Fringe Watch") 
        * Non-British Torchwood counterparts 
        * The Doctor 
      * Resident alien surveillance 
      * Electronic 
        * Secure computer networks 
        * Secure communications networks 
        * Unsecure networks -- "Chatter" analysis 
        * Data mining -- Taking non-classified data and assembling it in interesting ways. 
      * Special operations (AKA "Black ops") 
    * Counter-intelligence 
      * Employee background and security checks 
        * Pre-employment 
        * Monitoring 
          * Financial -- spending, income, and debt 
          * Family and associates 
      * Electronic 
        * Network and computer 
        * Communication 
        * Listening devices and jamming 
  * Admin 
    * Department head 
      * Deputy department head 
      * Department secretary 
    * Finance 
      * Budgeting 
      * Accounting 
      * Auditing 
        * Financial 
        * Procedural (Are people following regulations, are the regulations effective and efficient) 
    * Personnel 
      * Payroll and benefits (OUTSOURCED) 
      * Hiring 
      * Termination 
        * Fatal 
        * Retcon 
        * Routine 
    * Public relations 
      * Propaganda 
      * Interagency 
      * Media (Cover-ups, primarily) 
      * Making nice with the holders of the purse strings 
    * Training 
      * Psychic training 
      * Indoctrination 
      * Continuing education (ETA: at [](http://marginaliana.livejournal.com/profile)[**marginaliana**](http://marginaliana.livejournal.com/) 's suggestion) 
      * Retirement (Because I don't believe they Retcon away every employee's entire working life; it would make morale a bitch. But then you have to ease people out of being "in the know" about what's going on.) 
  * Support 
    * Department head 
      * Deputy department head 
      * Department secretary 
    * Computer and network 
      * Server maintenance 
      * Desktop support 
      * Programming and technological enhancement 
    * Hospitality (ETA: per [](http://xandra-ptv.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://xandra-ptv.livejournal.com/)**xandra_ptv** , Yvonne Hartman mentioned this in Doomsday/Army of Ghosts) 
      * VIP  

      * Catering (actual food prep probably outsourced) 
      * Cafeteria? 
    * Facilities maintenance 
      * Janitors 
      * Equipment maintenance 
      * Supply and requisition 
    * Laboratory support 
      * Lab animal care 
      * Special equipment maintenance 
      * Infrastructure -- Electrical, ventilation, fire suppression, blast-proofing, bio-containment, radiation shielding, etc. 
    * Security 
      * Guards (four complete shifts) 
        * Entries 
        * Roving 
        * CCTV monitoring 
        * Alien detention 
        * Human detention 
      * Routine bug sweeps 




	3. Character Bashing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suppose for a moment that I don't like coffee. No, wait, that I loathe coffee, hate it, get sick at the very smell of it, think that people who like it are insane and have no tastebuds. (A rant in extended-metaphor format.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on March 3, 2009 at http://adina-atl.livejournal.com/137197.html.

Suppose for a moment that I don't like coffee. No, wait, that I _loathe_ coffee, hate it, get sick at the very smell of it, think that people who like it are insane and have no tastebuds. 1

Wow.

Problem is, I like Torchwood, and like Ianto who is canonically rather fond of coffee. I could, of course, write a story where he really doesn't like coffee, that he loathes it as much as I do--showing that he's a person of superior worth and taste--but that he put on an act for Jack in Fragments and keeps it up for some inexplicable reason. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could come up with something convincing, though it would be pretty cracky.

Or I could just write a coffee-hating Ianto with no explanation, just write him drinking tea and making derogatory comments about coffee and any of the other characters who I don't redeem from their evil coffee-drinking ways. Most people would consider this Ianto to be wildly out of character, but that's okay, because I _really_ hate coffee. Perhaps I could put a warning in the header for "Coffee bashing," which would protect me from any criticism for the OOC writing, right?

See where this is going?

The problem isn't really that I'm disparaging one particular hot, caffeinated beverage. The problem is that I'm changing a character to suit my particular prejudices, without regard for the character we see on screen. I'm doing a disservice to those who like Ianto, not to those who like coffee. Ianto's relationship to coffee may be blown out of proportion in some stories, probably is, in fact, but I can't "fix" those stories by writing my own stories where he hates it.

So what do I do? 

I could avoid writing--or reading--Torchwood fan fiction, and given how many stories feature coffee in some way that might be best for my own sanity, not to mention my putative readers' good opinion of me. But if I was really so enamored of Torchwood and Ianto, I could just...not mention coffee in any of my stories. I've written eight Torchwood stories, and a quick check shows that four of them do not use the word coffee even once, and yet not one comment has complained about the coffeelessness. And that wasn't even deliberate avoidance. 

Not including coffee in a story is no sin; it's not even bad writing. There are lots of reasons that the characters might be drinking beer or whiskey or water, or might not be drinking anything at all. As long as I resist the urge to explain in great detail why they're not drinking the bitter evil beverage, I won't alienate those of my readers who do like it. 

The funny thing is that if I do explain, do try to show my readers how horrible coffee is, then the story becomes all about coffee: coffee is the star of the show, and Ianto's character has been subordinated to my coffee hatred. But if I just ignore the stuff, avoid mentioning it, my story is about whatever I prefer to write about, whether that's alien mysteries or hot sex (or mysteriously hot alien sex, for that matter).

Of course if I'd rather write about my hatred of coffee than about my favorite character, I should really just stop writing Torchwood at all.

 

1 Actually I'm kind of indifferent to coffee; I don't dislike it, but I seldom go out of my way to drink it. I'm a Unitarian-Universalist, however, and thus obligated to partake on Sundays. *grin* (Sorry, coffee jokes are also a UU religious obligation.)


	4. Seller's Remorse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a snippet set after Jack leaves at the end of season one. Gwen and Ianto discover something while doing paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted April 9th, 2009 at http://adina-atl.livejournal.com/141164.html.

"Ianto?"

Ianto resisted the urge to beat his head against the keyboard. Not that he had anything against Gwen, of course; with her leading in the field and him keeping track of things in the Hub, they almost made one Jack. But he would have been happier not to see her standing next to his workstation right now, especially not with a confused, concerned expression on her face and a familiar file folder in her hands.

"What the hell is this?" she asked, laying the file on his workstation.

He barely glanced at it. "Something I--really hoped you'd sign without reading?"

Her expression darkened into something approaching anger, though not at him. He hoped. "Status and Disposition of Prisoner Sato?" she demanded.

"Yearly report for UNIT," he explained blandly, keeping his own unease out of his voice. "Jack's calendar had a reminder. Jack--has surprisingly good personal files." And personnel files, but he wasn't going to mention that. Reading his own file was bad enough without anyone else seeing it. But Gwen was looking impatient. "Technically Tosh is our prisoner, Torchwood's prisoner, transferred here from UNIT's custody." Gwen's file noted her innocence, trust. Naiveté he might have called it, except she _knew_ people did bad things, evil things. Yet it didn't shake her trust in human nature, a trust that he and Jack and Tosh and Owen had long since lost if they had ever had it. "She--made a mistake, a bad mistake, to save her mother's life." Not as bad as his with Lisa, but the parallel wasn't lost on him. Or on Jack. "Jack negotiated for her--" He hesitated.

"Freedom?" Gwen suggested hopefully.

"Service. Five-year contract in return for her freedom at the end of it."

"That's horrible!" Gwen's mouth was set and stubborn. "We're not going to let this continue, are we?" she demanded. 

Ianto picked up the file. "Have you read this? All the way through?" She shook her head. He opened the file, found a place, read: "Contact with Sato's family continues to be restricted, though her growing estrangement from them renders this less effective as a means of control. Of the twelve postcards allowed in the past year, only five have been sent." He watched Gwen's face.

_One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three--_

The outrage on her face dissolved into confusion, her brows wrinkled. "She was in London last month, for her grandfather's eighty-eighth birthday." Ianto nodded; Gwen wasn't stupid, despite her tendency to react emotionally first.

He flipped through the file to another spot. "Although a loyal and competent field agent, Sato's technical skills have proved largely illusory. She can follow plans and correct obvious errors, but shows little creativity."

Gwen pursed her lips. "Jack wrote that?" Ianto nodded. "It's flannelling, pure fiction!" she said.

"Only about a quarter of it is out and out lies," Ianto corrected. "The rest is misdirection with just enough truth to lend verisimilitude."

"But why?" Gwen wailed.

"Seller's remorse," Tosh said from the side. Gwen jumped.

"Tosh! I didn't see you there," she said. 

Tosh gave a crooked little smile. "I guessed not." She leaned back against a pillar near Ianto's workstation. "So now you know," she said with patently fake cheerfulness. 

Gwen nodded. "I can't believe--I can't believe Jack would go along with this," she said. "I don't see why you don't fight this!"

"We can fake your death if you want," Ianto added. "It would be--easy." He'd faked so many deaths since coming back to Cardiff. One more would almost be a relief, using his skills to give Tosh back her life, not to cover up a mistake that cost someone else their own.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," Tosh said. She gave another crooked smile. "Knowing what Stockholm Syndrome is doesn't make you immune to it. Funny, isn't it?"

"Tosh--" Gwen started.

"What did you mean, seller's remorse?" Ianto interrupted. Tosh didn't need Gwen's brand of sympathy, not now.

"UNIT--" Tosh was still smiling. Ianto would be seeing that smile in his nightmares. "Someone at UNIT thought I could work for them instead of Jack. With more...supervision...probably. Jack--Jack won't let them." Her smile broke at last; her voice broke with it. "He promised me he wouldn't let them." But Jack was gone, she didn't say.

"We won't let them," Gwen promised, and Ianto nodded. "You're ours--no, you're part of us--and we won't let you go!" A momentary look of consternation crossed her face. "I mean, unless you want to go. Because if you want to leave Torchwood, just tell us. We won't keep you here if you want to go somewhere else, of course."

"I could tweak the report a little," Ianto offered. "Blacken your record just a little, make you a little more ordinary." He smiled. "Jack is a master of lies and misdirection, but I reckon he doesn't know bureaucratic reports as well as he might."

"You'd do that," Tosh said. It wasn't quite a question. She looked stunned.

"The three musketeers," Gwen said with forced cheer. "One for all and all for one."

"What about Owen?" Tosh asked. 

Did she really think Owen wouldn't help? "He can be the queen of Spain," Ianto said.


	5. Reaction Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why "Children of Earth" didn't happen in the Doctor Who universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted July 20th, 2009 at http://adina-atl.livejournal.com/149203.html.

"You hear about the children?"  
"Aliens, I reckon."  
"Don't be daft, can't be aliens."  
"Why not?"  
"Early, aren't they? Aliens are for Christmas. Not even August yet."  
"Don't have a calendar, I reckon."  
"You worried, then? If it's aliens?"  
"Not effing likely! Last lot got taken out by kids from Swansea."  
"As if!"  
"Dave said--"  
"No way kids in Swansea are fighting aliens. Too busy nicking cars. Ealing's what I heard."  
"Yeah, right. Parents in Ealing letting their kids cross the street by themselves?"  
"More likely than Swansea. Next you'll believe Dave's bollocks about an alien taskforce in _Cardiff_."


End file.
